This September, French high school students will discover González’s Tête Montserrat criant (1942) on the pages of their French textbook (2nde, éditions Hattier, 2019).

This powerful sculpture of a Catalan peasant woman screaming in rage and despair at the injustices of war serves to illustrate a texte by Wajdi Wouawad, Incendies (2003), which recounts the horros of the war in Lebanon from 1975 to 1990. First chosen by González to manifest his solidarity with the Spanish people and the Republic under fascist attack during the Spanish Civil War, the Montserrat remains his preferred theme to express the tragedy of war, as conflict spreads throughout Europe and the world after 1939. The choice of the Montserrat to illustrate this contemporary text, set in a different time and place, speaks to the  power and universality of González’s work.

Tête Montserrat Criant, 1942